____________Expressions in Song & Spirit & Social Change____________

I was ‘catching’ up on The Lord of the Rings movies, which may become a personal Bastille Day tradition. Of course, my musical memory was triggered, and by sheer ‘coincidence,’ ‘The Battle of Evermore,’ and ‘Freewill,’ were the psalms which percolated through my parietal lobe.

‘The Battle of Evermore’ is traditionally referenced to The Lord of the Rings, and I recently noticed the lyrical similarities between it and Rush’s ‘Freewill.’ I have previously written about the Zeppelin – Tolkien corollaries. The initial comparison, is Zeppelin’s ‘The sky is filled with good and bad, that mortals never know,’ and Rush’s lines ‘A planet of play things, we dance on the strings, of powers we cannot perceive.’ As with any artist utilizing archetypes, there will of course be similarities drawn from the human condition, perhaps it is the connection to planetary powers in each of these songs that drew my attention to them.

The first lines in these songs also are curiously connected. ‘The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom, and walked the night alone.’ from ‘Evermore,’ and in ‘Freewill,’ ‘A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.’ These associations are not as direct, perhaps even diametrically mirrored, as Prince of Peace is representative of hosts, and gloom a synonym for ennui, or aimlessness.

This dark night of archetypal song, touching the emptiness that humanity can feel described through the songs from the point of view of night and day, or so it seems. ‘No comfort has the fire at night, that lights the face so cold.’ and ‘You can’t pray for a place, in heaven’s unearthly estate.’ Since these songs seem to typify the Yin and Yang, then the next comparison no longer seems such a stretch, as Yin is considered to become Yang, and vice versa. ‘The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back. Bring it back,’ being the manner of Yang instituting it’s power can control, while ‘I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose freewill,’ representing the ethereal and constant change of Yin, thus never having left the balance, their is no need to restore it with stringent statutes.

In conclusion, as was stated about ‘Stryder,’ before he publicly became Isildur’s heir, ‘All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost.’